Tag: background

The Jaipur Literature Fest this year had its share of interesting, quirky sessions. Standing in the Google Mughal tent, I listened to Nirupama Dutt elaborating on the virtues of the Punjabis. Featuring Shauna Singh Baldwin, Kishwar Desai, Navtej Serna and Ravinder Singh; the discussion did not dwell much on the real socio-economic problems of the state; Haryana or Himachal Pradesh, all of which comprise erstwhile Eastern Punjab.

English: Sunil Dutt (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Admittedly, they were proud of the language and the rich culture of the state, but it seemed to be more of a marketing event for the authors. I doubt whether most people conform to the strait-jacketed view of the place, as each individual is remarkably different. Nirupama Dutt started to remember her conversations with the great actor Sunil Dutt and his wife Nargis. She also rightly pointed out the great pride communities including but not limited to the Bengalis and the Keralites have in their own tongue; which sometimes translates into regionalism of the worst kind.

Kabir Bedi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of the audience was also unabashedly discussing the pros and cons of the state’s influence on the country’s psyche. As practically everybody in India is aware; most songs feature a smattering of the language, resulting in an “instant noodle” version of Punjabiyat; delivered in your mindspace by the consistent smorgasbord of Bollywood’s semi-urbane population. It sometimes reduces the genuinely rich folk traditions of the state to a pale reflection; dumbed down to appeal to every Ram, Rahim and Anthony.

A lady in the crowd stood up to proudly announce that she was the daughter-in-law of the main event sponsor, DSC. She again emphasized the lack of pride Punjabis have in their own culture vis-a-vis others, as one of the world’s major literary and intellectual events was being sponsored by a majorly Punjabi firm. Kabir Bedi stood up to interject that even though the Punjabi Sikhs and the Hindus appear to have a tough exterior, they have a heart of gold. (Something to that effect)Valid point, Mr. Bedi; I partially agree with you.

Ravinder Singh dwelled more on his fascination with music including Honey Singh, and experiments with atheism. The most erudite of the lot seemed to be Navtej Serna; who was a little more measured than the others. With the kind of cultural influence the state has wielded on the country’s mindscape; it would be great if the Prime Minister and the Central Government did something constructive to improve the lot of citizens in Punjab, Haryana, HP and across the country. “Punjabi By Nature” could mean a true generosity of spirit; something that is preached a lot by everybody across the country and the world, but seldom practiced.

Visit aglaia.co.in English: Flag of Indian Army (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Aglaia Staff

India‘s army chief accused Pakistan on Monday of planning a shootout along Kashmir‘s de facto border in which two Indian soldiers died, and said he had instructed commanders to respond aggressively if there is a provocation from the other side.

“The attack on January 8 was premeditated, a pre-planned activity. Such an operation requires planning, detailed reconnaissance,” General Bikram Singh told a news conference in New Delhi.

Gen Singh said that the beheading of two Indian soldiers in the Pakistan army attack was unacceptable and against all rules of engagement.

“I expect all my commanders at the Line of Control to be both aggressive and offensive in the face of provocation and fire,” he added, He was speaking about an hour before commanders from both sides on the so-called Line of Control (LoC) dividing the Himalayan territory were due to hold talks to defuse tension after a week that saw two soldiers killed on each side. It was the most serious outbreak of violence in Kashmir since India and Pakistan agreed a ceasefire nearly a decade ago

India’s response to Pakistani firing at its posts in LoC in Jammu and Kashmir was “measured and perfect,” he said.

India reserved its right to retaliate against Pakistan at the time and place of its choice, won’t remain passive when attacked, the army chief said ahead of Indo-Pak flag meeting.

On the issue of India upholding the ceasefire, he said that the army would do so as long as adversary upholds it.

Directions were given to army commanders to respond immediately if provoked, he said.

The army chief offered his hearfelt condolences to the family of the 2 jawans who were brutally killed on the Indian side of the LoC.

Visit aglaia.co.in Districts of Delhi, with Narela in the North West Delhi district. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Sunil Kumar

Shikhar Dhawan stroked a brilliant century as Delhi defeated England by six wickets. This was the second consecutive loss for England in their warm-up matches and this gives them a lot of headaches ahead of the first ODI which begins on January 11th.

Kevin Pietersen was rested for this match and England opted to bat after winning the toss. They got off to a good start with Ian Bell scoring at a confident rate. Alastair Cook chipped in with a confident 44 before he was sent back by Sumit Narwal. The feature of the England innings was a 113 run partnership for the fourth wicket between Bell and Eoin Morgan. Morgan was at his attacking best as he smashed 52 off 55 balls. Bell, who scored a fine 91 in England’s first warm-up game against India A at Palam, scored a wonderful century to continue his good form. Craig Kieswetter finished things off in style by blazing an aggressive 41 off 27 balls as England notched up 294/5.

The Delhi attack featured Parwinder Awana and Ashish Nehra but their bowling looked ordinary. The pick of the Delhi bowlers Varun Sood who picked up 3/45 in his 10 overs.

Delhi were faced with a huge task ahead but Unmukt Chand and Shikhar Dhawan got the team off to a great start. The opening pair notched up 70 runs before Chand was dismissed for 37 by James Tredwell. The Delhi team lost some quick wickets before Milind Kumar joined Dhawan and steadied the ship.

Dhawan was at his authoritative best and took the attack to the England pace bowlers. He drove the pace quartet of Steven Finn, Dernbach, Meaker and Chris Woakes through the covers. The moment the pacers dug it in short he was quickly into position to play the pull shot.

Milind Kumar, at the other end, showed a lot of maturity and paced his innings to perfection. Whether it was playing the slash over deep third man or driving on the up, Milind had an answer to everything that was thrown at him. Dhawan got to his ton with a big six off Tredwell before he was snapped up by Joe Root for 110. The knock came off just 109 balls and included 14 fours and three sixes.

Rajat Bhatia joined Milind Kumar and they ensured that there were no further jolts. Bhatia slammed an unbeaten 45 and finished off the run-chase with a flourish as they put together a 103 run stand off just 72 balls.

All the England bowlers struggled to check the flow of runs and their attack looked pedestrian. This second consecutive loss gives England further problems ahead of the five match ODI series.

One of the biggest fairs in the consumer electronics industry; the CES kicks off on Tuesday in Las Vegas. This is the forum where big guns such as Samsung, Sony, Intel, and more show off their latest and greatest technologies. In the past, electronics such as the CD player, camcorder, and VCR made their stateside debuts at CES. More recently, HDTV, tablets, and the Microsoft Xbox have been unveiled at the conference.

A few announcements this year: ultra-high definition televisions with large screens, evolution in smartphone glass technology, a new version of the Optimus and the Galaxy S4. Intel is going to introduce a new processor; the Bay Trail-T to take on Nvidia‘s Tegra and Qualcomm‘s S4. With CEA estimates that factory-installed automotive technology will generate $8.7 billion dollars in 2013, so it’s no wonder seven major car companies will be on the show floor.

The launch of a corresponding ecosystem means that companies from over 150 countries will be on display.

India is a strong country. We know the factors that have hampered our economy; right from regionalism, chauvinism, archaic laws, lax governance, overpaid economists and debating intellectuals.

The national culture of negativity is accentuated by the fact that people are more focused on what is happening three thousand miles away; rather in their own backyard. Coupled by the tendency to usurp; deny justice and subvert rights.

If the tools of labour are given to our workforce; laws are implemented in spirit rather than on paper; and infrastructure is created, there is no reason why we cannot become a greater power than the Chinese or anybody else. Social movements have to attempt to reform; not become instruments of terror themselves. The fire and multiple insurgencies raging in the country’s heartland, its belly are symptomatic of the current malaise in the system.

As stated in many books, Mao’sChina was a characteristic of its times; meant to overthrow the fractured setup inherent at the time. Our social order is full of inequity; we only have people indulging in coffee-table discussions; and those in the corridors of power turning a blind eye to evils and settling for sycophancy.

A halo of nobility is better if it is practised rather than preached. The news article only exemplifies what the Indian people are capable of; if hurdles are removed and people are properly incentivized rather than consistently belittled. What a vicious web we weave when we practice to fawn and deceive!

Daydreaming really is the key to solving complex problems, a new study has found.

Some of the most important scientific breakthroughs ever made – by everyone from Einstein to Newton – came about as the geniuses behind them allowed their minds to wander.

Now research by modern day scientists has shown that mere mortals can also improve their problem-solving ability in the same way.

The study showed that people who returned to a difficult task after taking a break and doing an easy task boosted their performance by around 40 per cent.

But there was little or no improvement for people who did another demanding task during the break, used it to rest or did not have a break at all.

Scientists who carried out the study said the results indicate that doing simple tasks that allow us to daydream is key to solving trickier questions playing on our minds.

“Many influential scientific thinkers claim to have had their moments of inspiration while engaged in thoughts or activities not directly aimed at solving the problem they were trying to solve,” said lead author Benjamin Baird, of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“This study demonstrated that taking a break involving an undemanding task improved performance on a classic creativity task far more than taking a break involving a demanding task, resting or taking no break.

“The findings arguably provide the most direct evidence to date that conditions that favour mind wandering also enhance creativity.”

The research, published in the journal Psychological Science, is likely to please school pupils and bored office workers who enjoy gazing out of the window but may not go down less well with teachers and bosses.

Einstein is believed to have begun his theory of relativity while he daydreamed about riding or running beside a sunbeam to the edge of the universe – after he was expelled from school for rebelling against rote learning.

Newton developed his theory of gravity after he happened to see an apple fall from a tree in his mother’s garden in Lincolnshire.

Further back the Greek philosopherArchimedes shouted ‘Eureka’ when he stepped into a bath and realised the relation between the rising water level and the volume of his body that was submerged.

The study involved 145 people aged between 19 and 32 who were given two minutes to list as many unusual uses as possible for everyday objects. They were then split into four groups with one of the groups not allowed any break from the task. The other three groups were each given a 12-minute break during which some carried out a demanding memory task, some enjoyed complete rest and some did an undemanding task.

Those who did the undemanding task were found to be daydreaming a lot about personal issues or past or future events as a result of its ease.

All participants were then asked to return to the task of listing unusual uses for ordinary obobjects. When considering new items all groups did the same. But when considering the same objects as earlier, daydreamers improved their performance by 40 per cent while the other groups performed the same as before.

The researchers said the improved performance was associated with “a higher level of mind wandering but not with a greater level of explicitly directed thoughts about the task.” They added that the “seemingly dysfunctional mental state” of daydreaming may “serve as a foundation for creative inspiration”.

The authors suggested that we may unconsciously process thoughts while concentrating on another task but said more research is needed to explain more fully how this happens.

In today’s interconnected world, reams of information have resulted in petabytes of data getting generated. For those of you unfamilar with computing jargon, data runs into petabytes. This is roughly equivalent to 58,000 full movies. Most of this is stored in server farms, data centers which store all of this.

Since this is costly in monetary terms, corporates need to ideate on a space to store all of this data, also move it across multiple networks or the cloud, and help to make sense of it. VMWare, the king of the virtualization world, has a strategy of freeing up physical space by When he took charge in 2008, about 25 percent of the world’s Intel-based applications were running on a virtualized base. Four years later, that figure is 60 percent. In that same period, the number of VMware certified professionals has risen from 25,000 to 125,000.

“Back in 2008, we were asking ourselves what the hell is it,” Maritz said of cloud computing. “Now we’re asking ourselves: What do we do about it? How do we actually implement it? How do you transform your operations to take full advantage of it? What’s going to happen in four years’ time? Where are we going with this technology?”

“Where we are going is influenced by an enormous set of forces that are affecting our industry,” he added.

“We’re coming to the mature stages of a very successful 50-year journey to automate most of the paper-based processes in the world. Businesses are absolutely dependent on these capabilities and they’re not going to go away. At this point they’re just table stakes. What’s happening now is the imperative to deliver fundamentally new experiences to both end users and end customers.”

VMWare is now promising to virtualize the entire process by solutions such as vCloud Suite 5.1 that claims to offer a one-stop solution for virtualization, cloud management and infrastructure solutions. There’s a market opportunity running into $20 billion by 2015. According to the firm, turning big data servers into virtual has been done on the Hadoop platform.